Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, said Friday that it expected to suffer a loss this year, thanks to rapidly declining sales around the world, especially in the United States. The company is expecting its first full-year operating loss since 1937 — 350 billion yen ($3.9 billion) — more than double its previous forecast.
It widened its forecast for an operating loss on its main automotive business to 450 billion yen, or $5 billion, attributing the larger loss to both steep declines in global auto sales and strong gains by the Japanese currency, the yen, which lowers the yen-denominated value of overseas earnings.
The global downturn has pummeled global auto sales, but Toyota had appeared somewhat resistant. No longer.
In December, Toyota predicted an operating loss for 2008 of 150 billion yen, and said it expected to earn a small net profit, even though most analysts predicted that its operations would end up in the red for the year.
A net operating loss for 2008 would be the first since the company was founded in 1937 as a unit of the Toyoda family’s automated loom company.
Toyota posted a net loss of 164.7 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in the three months ending Dec. 31. In the same quarter last year, the company posted a 458.6 billion yen, or $5 billion, net profit.
The company said it was particularly hard hit in North America, traditionally its most profitable market. Toyota said vehicle sales in North America dropped 31 percent during the quarter compared with the same period last year to 521,000 units. The sales decline and losses on interest-rate swaps led to an operating loss of 247.4 billion yen, or $2.7 billion, in North America.
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